Ventura County Biographies
Lewis A. Hardison
Submitted by Sandy Neder
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
Lewis A. Hardison is a native of Maine, born August 9, 1853. His father, Olive
A. Hardison, was born in the same State, May 18, 1830. Their ancestry is the
same as that of W.L. Hardison whose history appears in this book, and who is an
uncle of the subject of this sketch. Lewis A. Hardison's mother, nee Mary
O'Leary, was born at Frasier Mills, New Brunswick, in the year 1824. He was the
oldest son in a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters, five of
whom are now living. Mr. Hardison received his education in the public schools
of his native State, and remained on the farm until he was nineteen years of
age. At that time he went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania, and in 1872 became
a driller of wells, working seven years for wages. In 1879 he got an outfit and
began to drill wells under contract. During the eleven years that he worked
there he was engaged on as many as fifty-three wells, their average depth being
about 1,400 feet, and average cost of drilling $1,000 each. Four men are
employed on each well, and termed a drilling crew, two drillers and two
tool-dressers, on of each for each four, changing at 12 M. and at midnight. When
the Hardison-Stewart Oil Company commenced operations in California, in 1883, he
came to Santa Paula and for four years did the company's blacksmith work at Pico
and Santa Paula. Mr. Hardison is the inventor and has patented a well drilling
machine of great simplicity and merit, which he used with great advantage in
putting down water wells in New York during the fall and winter of 1882-'83. For
some time he has been the master mechanic of the Hardison-Stewart Oil Company,
built their tanks and rigs, and superintended the putting up of their telephone
lines and the laying of their pipe lines. He is now superintendent of the
Mission Transfer Company, and looks after the gauging of the oil, sees where it
goes and keeps an account of the barrels of oil that go through their pipes.
They have seventy miles of telephone and ninety miles of four and two-inch pipe
lines.
December 25, 1877, Mr. Hardison was united in marriage to Miss Margaret A.
Brooking, a native of St. Johns, New Foundland, born July 22, 1851. They have
had seven children, five of whom are living, viz.: Oliver J., Clara E., Arthur
J., Bert and Lewis. He and his wife are members of the Universalist Church of
Santa Paula. His political views are Democratic, and independent when he
pleases. He was made a Master Mason July 14, 1875. Mr. Hardison has a pleasant
home situated on Eighty street, between Santa Paula street and Railroad avenue.
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES OF SANTA BARBARA, SAN LUIS
OBISPO, AND VENTURA, CALIF. by Ida Addis Storke, 1891, p 321